Murder House Trilogy
The Murder House Trilogy is a three part mini-series in The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers, published by Aladdin Paperbacks (an imprint of Simon & Schuster). The first book in the trilogy, Deprivation House, was published in early May 2008, with books #2 House Arrest and #3 Murder House published in July and September respectively. The three books in this trilogy are also books 22-24 in The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers. For a time there it was thought Murder House Trilogy #3 would be Undercover Brothers #24, because according to the title page of Haunted (a "Special Ghost Stories Edition" published in August 2008), Haunted was the 24th book. This has since been regraded as a mistake, since the final Murder House title, was still listed as #24 upon publication. The Murder House Trilogy marks a big change to the format of the Undercover Brothers, since Simon & Schuster has adopted the three part mini-series format, seemingly for the remainder of the series. A new graphic design for the books was also introduced with these titles. Foreshadowing When the titles of Deprivation House, House Arrest, and Murder House were released, the fact that all three titles had the word "house" in them gave the implication that these three books might form a trilogy. This was confirmed, and the name of the trilogy was revealed when Simon & Schuster released the cover art for Deprivation House, with "book one in The Murder House Trilogy" printed at the top. Plot summary Thousands of teens audition for a spot on a reality TV show, where they will live in a Mediterranean Villa located in exclusive Beverly Hills and have a chance to win one million dollars. Twelve teens are chosen, but things start to go wrong when one of the twelve contestants, the famous Ripley Lansing, receives a death threat. Her parents request the highest level of security for Ms. Lansing, and the police ask for the assistance of American Teens Against Crime (ATAC). ATAC sends their top agents Frank and Joe Hardy, undercover as two brothers separated at birth, to find the person (or persons) who threatened to kill Ripley Lansing.15 page preview in the back of Undercover Brothers #21 Comic Con Artist Other information *The series introduced a new cover art style for the Undercover Brothers books and was the first time in almost seven years that Frank and Joe will be featured on the cover. *''The Murder House Trilogy'' was the first Hardy Boys mini-series since 1993 and only the third official one ever. (The other two are the Operation Phoenix Trilogy and the Ring of Evil Trilogy, with The Hardy Boys Casefiles #8 See No Evil, #16 Line of Fire and #55 Beyond the Law being the only unofficial trilogy, the Bayport Corruption Storyline.) *Also noteworthy is that Haunted was published in early August, right in between the release dates for House Arrest and Murder House. It is not known why Simon & Schuster would want to disrupt The Murder House Trilogy. To further complicate matters (as mentioned above), Haunted was mistakenly listed as Undercover Brothers #24, which is also the number of Murder House. *Aladdin Paperbacks published a Nancy Drew Girl Detective mini-series at the same time as this series; the Perfect Mystery Trilogy ran from June to October 2008. References External links *Announcement at HardyBoysCasefiles.com *Announcement at The Hardy Boys Blog Category: Undercover Brothers